GA4 and Looker Studio Conversions Report: Report on Conversion Effectiveness by Traffic Source

Looker Data Studio (formerly called Google Data Studio) can build great reports with GA4 Data. Here's a guided walkthrough to creating a conversions report in Looker that will show Sessions, engaged session rate, events / session, Conversions, and Conversion Rate.
Have questions or comments? Leave them in the comments. I've been learning / struggling with GA4 over the couple of years, and I'm always up for learning more...and for new video ideas.
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[@kevindruckenbrod]

Super helpful! Thanks

[@rooted-digital]

Glad to hear it! Thanks for the kind words and wishing you all the best with your reporting.

[@aidaruilova6839]

Please add more Looker Studio tutorials - thank you! Looking to share key metrics about a section of our website with internal stakeholders who are not on GA4.

[@rooted-digital]

Hi Aida, thanks for the kind words and for the idea. Can you give me a little more context for what you want to show with your report? What does this section of the website "do"...and why is it especially important for analysis? What metrics are you interested in? I can try and make something in the same general zone. It won't be in the super near term, but it can be one of the very next ones I make if I can figure it out. Good luck and Godspeed to you in all things GA4 and Looker! Zack

[@user-uf4mk9gb8m]

Amazing tutorial!!

[@rooted-digital]

Well, I'm so glad to hear it was helpful for you. Thanks for the encouraging feedback!

[@chrishan3490]

Very nice video!:) Got a quick question here, so there could be multiple conversions in "Conversions" column such as add to cart, payment, etc. It will show consolidated value in that "conversions" column. what if I want to see only "add to cart" in this column?

[@rooted-digital]

Hi Chris, thanks for the feedback and for the thoughtful question. You point out a very clear drawback to this particular setup. 🙂 This is actually on my to do list to make a future video about this very thing (showing conversion rate for specific conversions), but I haven’t done it yet. This blog, though (www.analyticsmania.com/post/conversion-rate-in-google-analytics-4/) should help. This guy is a GA4 genius. Check out the part towards the top about conversion rates in standard reports (might be fastest to get what you need) and also the part towards the end about conversion rate in Explorations. The filter he references might be able to help you if you’re staying in Looker Studio. Hope it helps!

[@analiticaisocialweb1399]

Hey thanks for the video, what if you have different type of conversiones and what to see te conversion rate vs total sessions?

[@niklasjohansson4526]

Create custom dimensions and filter by that in Looker. But there's more problem with GA4. Conversions are counted in the same way events are measured in Universal Analytics. So if someone converts 2 times within the same session GA4 will show 2 conversions. Don't know have to make the conversions unique and not count everyone of them. GA4 = Headache 😭

[@rooted-digital]

Thanks Niklas! In terms of the double counting of conversions, I believe that if you make an audience trigger event based on your conversion event, and *then* register the audience trigger event as a conversion you can work around the duplicate conversion issue. Hopefully this can get the job done for you.

[@heymatthias]

Thank you very helpful. But I cannot find the option to set the zoom in the maps. Has something changed meanwhile in looker studio or is there any hack?

[@rooted-digital]

Hi there. I was actually doing some work on another report yesterday and I saw the same functionality. To confirm, you're referring to the "Zoom area" field in your chart options once you've clicked into the geo chart? If so, make sure you're accessing that specific geo chart. And maybe try changing the "Geo-dimension" to see if that somehow gets its attention to start working. If neither work, I don't know if I've got anything else. Good luck!

[@heymatthias]

Sorry, I used the wrong map. I didnt use geo map. Now it works.@@rooted-digital

[@rooted-digital]

Great, glad to hear it 👍

[@genaropalma9899]

Hello. Great video! Is there a way to add a source as a dimension? I would like to show only data come from organic traffic. Are controllers the only way I have to do it?

[@rooted-digital]

Hi Genaro, thanks for the kind words. In terms of adding source as a dimension, yes, you can do that! This resource here (data.ga4spy.com/) shows a comprehensive list of all dimensions and metrics in GA4 and where they are available. This will show what is available in the Data Studio (now Looker) connection, what is available in Explorations, and so on. So if you want to see traffic data at the source level (google, bing, duckduckgo, etc) and you only want to see organic search traffic, then I would pull the session source dimension into your report and I would filter to only show traffic coming from the organic search default channel grouping. Hope that helps get you started. Good luck and Godspeed! Zack

[@genaropalma9899]

@@rooted-digital Great! Thanks a lot for the answer and for the video!

[@rooted-digital]

Quite welcome. 👍👍

[@hazw.9959]

Hey, super cool. Can you show how to create a table with Google Ads Campaigns in Looker Studio using GA4 Data?

[@rooted-digital]

Hello Haz, I made this video showing the GA4 linking process and 3 ways to do reports in GA4. One of the ways is with Looker Studio. Let me know if this is helpful: kzbin.info/www/bejne/moqQdoOcmJZpmqs Good luck! Zack

[@alishaniven2501]

Hello! Thanks for sharing this, however, it should be noted that calculating the conversion rate this way will not match up with the 2 available conversion metrics in GA4 itself which are: user conversion rate and session conversion rate. The session conversion rate exactly matches how the goal conversion rate was calculated in UA. This is super frustrating, don't understand why Google would limit the metrics this way - especially such an important one. Does anyone have a solve for this? I tried a different connector but no difference.

[@rooted-digital]

Alisha, thanks for the additional context here. To clarify, are you saying that the reason that this won't match the UA session conversion rate is because the conversion count is higher here in GA4 vs. UA (i.e., not de-duplicated)? In other words, traffic would then be at the session level but conversion count would be at the user level. If I am understanding correctly, the only possible solution I have heard is to create an audience based on your converters and then trigger an audience trigger event when someone new enters the audience. Then, you can mark that audience trigger event as a conversion. Let me know if that sounds close to what you're saying or if I'm way off. Personally, I've perhaps become too accustomed to the fact that GA4 will just never match UA precisely, so I'm getting more comfortable with metrics that don't line up. Thanks again for the thoughtful comment and perspective. Zack

[@alishaniven2501]

@@rooted-digital Hi Zack! Thanks so much for the reply and the detail - I really appreciate it and it's great to have your advice and perspective on this. I will definitely give that suggestion a try - the end goal from my point of view would be to be able to measure unique conversion events as well as the total event count for conversion events. Which I believe your suggestion would cover. And then it should also be available in LookerStudio too. I will try it and be sure to report back. I do guess we all have to come to terms with the fact that there are a lot of things we can't/shouldn't compare to UA. I was very surprised to see how different certain things were when we started really getting into it so it's great to have advice from a seasoned professional! Have a wonderful day and thanks again!

[@rickkwakkel9585]

@@rooted-digital I agree with Alisha. Session conversion rate in GA4 is different. It is calculated by counting the sessions that have one or more conversions and divide by total sessions. Your solution is not the same. I hoped you would have cracked it. I can count the sessions with conversions in a separate table in Looker Studio with filters, but I am struggling to calculate a metric that divides (sessions filtered with Is conversion = true) / sessions) because I don't know if it is possible to use filters in a formula. Ofcourse it would be a lot easier if the GA4 connector developers just included all metrics in the connector.

[@NevilHulspas]

Sessions is not a metric available in Looker Studio calculated fields? Or am I missing something?

[@rooted-digital]

Hi Nevil, are you referring to what's going on around the 5:15 mark in the video? I just tried this again on my end and when I went to "Add Field" I can create a formula using "Conversions" / "Sessions". Sorry to hear it's not working for you. I don't know what it might be since I haven't been able to replicate the issue. Best of luck.

[@heymatthias]

Hi there! I have one more Question: What is if I have 2 Types of Conversions, like clicks on phone calls and contact form signups. How can I display them separated like 5 conversions of calls and 3 conversions of contact form signups, and then display the conversion value proper, when a phone call is 10 dollar and contact form lead is 5 dollar??? Do you already have a video about that? Thanks man, awesome videos btw!

[@rooted-digital]

Hello there! Some responses: If you want to show the value ($10 for a phone call, $5 for contact form, etc) you can set a default conversion value in GA4 or you can send in an event parameter for value when creating your event in GTM. Here's how to do the first option. support.google.com/analytics/answer/13749237?hl=en In terms of reporting on individual conversion actions, you should have a set of metrics (like conversion count, session conversion rate, user conversion rate) in Looker for each of your GA4 conversions. You may need to refresh your data source. This short video shows how to do that - and also shows some of those conversion related metrics going into Looker in my own property. kzbin.info/www/bejne/mZC0nHaNrbqmb6c Best of luck!

[@heymatthias]

Thanks Buddy @@rooted-digital

[@rooted-digital]

Quite welcome@@heymatthias : )

[@EaganHeathAsymmetricMarketing]

Anyone else not able to find Conversions @4:26? It's not an option.

[@KevinMARION-iu3pf]

Try "Key events" now as it was just renamed so to differentiate from Google Ads' conversions.

[@rooted-digital]

Good point. Google updated the name for "Conversions" and they are now called "key events". So use key event and session key event rate instead of conversions / conversion rate and you'll be in business. Kind of silly if you ask me, but Google does that sometimes. Here's their support article if you're interested: support.google.com/analytics/answer/9355848?hl=en